Here's Why Everyone Is Confused About The Date Of The Iowa Caucuses

The Des Moines Register's
Jennifer Jacobs tweeted at 11 a.m. today that the Iowa GOP
central committee has reached consensus on January 3, 2012 as the
date for the state's first in the nation caucus — jumping ahead
of Nevada, Florida and South Carolina to maintain its traditional
spot in the race.

But the report was quickly disputed by POLITICO reporter Reid
Epstein, who tweeted
minutes later that "I'm told that the report that IA caucus date
set for Jan 3 is NOT CORRECT."

He added
that "To clear up: Iowa GOP central committee has not set a date
for its caucus, state GOP spox says. No decision made on call
today."

In the meantime, Jacobs' tweet was picked up by The Huffington
Post without attribution — which put up a post headlined:
"BREAKING: 2012 presidential race moves ever closer as Iowa
schedules its caucus for Jan. 3." The post was linked to with the
same headline by @BreakingNews.

The reports that the caucus was set for January 3rd (which Jacobs
never said), overlook that GOP Chairman Matt Strawn must make the
final decision and the committee must formally vote on it — a
fact Jacobs attested to in a
second tweet: "Waiting to see if @MattStrawn acted on
central committee guidance. #iacaucus"

In fact, the date of the Iowa Caucuses will not be final until
New Hampshire sets a date for its primary, as Iowa holds its
nominating contest eight days before the Granite State. It's
possible that New Hampshire would follow Iowa's decision, but it
could just as well move the contest into 2011.

In fact, moving the New Hampshire contest earlier may be in the
interests of Mitt Romney — who pushed Nevada to push up its
caucus date to January 14th — in order to inject more chaos into
the Hawkeye State.

Romney is not heavily contending the Iowa Caucuses, but his most
significant opponent, Rick Perry, is. Pushing the date of that
contest sooner, would give Perry less time to organize, in a
state where Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul have spent significant time and
resources.

The Huffington Post's original post:

The updated post:

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated
Jacobs' initial tweet. She did not say the caucus date was
decided by the GOP central committee — just that the committee
had reached a consensus on the date.